In opening statements Monday of the trial of a former track coach accused of sexually touching two teen-age girls, a defense attorney told jurors that only a “trivial amount” of DNA from the coach was found during a genital swab of one of the girls.

Brian Schmonsees -- one of two defense attorneys for defendant Askia Brown -- said the presence of the DNA could have been the result of secondary transfer, meaning that Brown never touched intimate parts of the girl’s body during a sports massage he gave her.

Schmonsees also told jurors that the girls weren’t familiar with sports massages -- implying that the girls may have misinterpreted what was going on.

“She had never had her groin and her glutes massaged,” Schmonsees said about the 14-year-old.

Schmonsees said the defense planned to call a child-abuse psychologist who “will speak about the methods the government used to question” the teens.

The girls were 14 and 15 in summer 2008, when they trained with Brown at his private sports studio next to Lincoln High School. Brown also was track coach at Central Catholic High School. He was 33 at the time he was arrested.

A 12-person jury was selected and attorneys made opening statements Monday, the first day of what is expected to be a one- to two-week trial in the Multnomah County circuit courtroom of Judge John Wittmayer.

The first witness -- the girl who was 15 at the time she says she was abused -- also took the stand.

The girl said she knew Brown because of his coaching position, and she took him up on his offer of free training sessions in the summer of 2008. She said Brown texted her and asked her about boys, but she didn’t feel uncomfortable around him until the end of one workout, when he gave her a massage that started near her feet, but ended up under her running shorts.

She was laying on her abdomen, playing Tetris on her phone while it happened. But she didn’t say anything to Brown, she testified.

“It was uncomfortable, but ... I was confused about it,” the girl responded.

That same day, she confided in one person, a teenage friend.

“I just wanted to not think it was a big deal,” the girl said. “I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen.”

She said she didn’t call police because it wasn’t like the typical scenario she had envisioned as a sexual assault, which she described as “someone running at night and getting taken by someone and raped.”

The girl said she trained with Brown a few more times after the incident, but she was sure not to let him give her a massage again. Only weeks later, as the school year was starting, did she hear about a news report about Brown allegedly molesting a 14-year-old girl.

The then 15-year-old girl said she felt guilty for not telling any adults about what happened to her. She then told her school counselor what Brown had done to her, she said. The counselor called police.

This is the second trial for Brown, who was convicted of second- and third-degree sexual abuse after a four-week trial in 2009. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison but released after eight months for reasons that are unclear.

In 2013, the Oregon Court of Appeals threw out Brown’s convictions and sent his case back to Multnomah County Circuit Court for a retrial. The appeals court found that jurors during the first trial shouldn’t have been allowed to hear the opinions of child-abuse investigators who determined that one girl had been abused and that the second case was "highly concerning for sexual abuse.''